‘El Niño Gala’ was originally found by Steven A. McDonald as a bud sport of a tree growing in a cultivated area in his orchard, commonly known as Royal T Farms, 13321 Rd I SW, Royal City, Wash. The original plant originated as a bud sport that had been grown by grafting ‘Royal Gala’ (expired U.S. Plant Pat. No. 4,121) budwood to a Mark rootstock in 1991. More specifically, a number of ‘Kidd's Gala’ trees growing on Mark rootstock were damaged during a storm. These trees with Mark rootstock were each budded with ‘Royal Gala’ budwood. The resulting original plant of my new variety grew from one of these ‘Royal Gala’ budwood grafts. The new tree grew unnoticed until 1996 when the distinct red color of its fruit was apparent.
This new and distinct ‘El Niño’ tree variety has not been observed under all possible environmental conditions. The phenotype may vary significantly with variations in environment such as temperature, light intensity and day length, without any variation in genotype. However, the distinctive combination of traits set forth in the description below have been repeatedly observed in the original tree and in asexually propagated progeny and have been determined to be firmly fixed and to be the basic characteristics of this new tree, which in combination distinguishes ‘El Niño’ as a new and distinct variety.
The new variety has been asexually propagated by or at the direction of Steven A. McDonald by grafting onto Emla 26 rootstock. Asexual propagation has been performed at the Royal T Farms in Royal City, Wash.